Law enforcement
officers who raided a marijuana field in a remote area of Humboldt County, and
seized and later destroyed over 1,500 pounds of cannabis, did not violate the
owners’ constitutional or statutory rights, including the right to use
marijuana for medicinal purposes, the First District Court of Appeal has ruled.

Div. Three, in a
June 28 opinion certified Thursday for publication, affirmed a Humboldt
Superior Court judge’s grant of summary judgment to the county in a suit by
Roscoe Littlefield and four others. Roscoe Littlefield, who is in his 80s, was
the subject of a 1987 Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that allowed
authorities to seize a 40-acre spread because marijuana was grown on two acres
of it.

The raid by
Humboldt deputies and agents of the state Campaign Against Marijuana Planting
centered on two gardens of the Littlefield property, containing a total of 214
plants, each between three and eight feet tall. Posted on the front gate were
medical marijuana recommendations for four of the plaintiffs—Littlefield, his
wife Sylvia, his son Timothy, and Jeffrey Libertini.

According to the
recommendations, Roscoe Littlefield suffered from degenerative joint disease,
his wife from degenerative joint disease and glaucoma, and his son from low
back pain and anxiety. No ailment was specified for Libertini.

The
recommendations specified that each of the plaintiffs needed to use two ounces
of marijuana per day, so the 1,508 pounds that were seized would have supplied
their needs for more than five years, Justice Peter Siggins noted in his opinion.

The county
disposed of the marijuana under Health and Safety Code Sec. 11479, which
specifies procedures for the destruction of controlled substances when it is
unsafe or impractical to store the drugs while awaiting the outcome of legal
proceedings.

The plaintiffs,
who were not arrested or charged with a crime, claimed in their complaint that
the seizure violated their rights. They asked for more than $600,000 to replace
the marijuana, plus damages for pain and suffering, emotional distress, and medical
expenses.

Judge
Christopher Wilson, in granting summary judgment, ruled that the officers had
probable cause to seize the plants, that a medical marijuana recommendation in
and of itself does not immunize the user from seizure of the substance, and that
the state’s medical marijuana laws did not bar confiscation of the drugs in the
absence of evidence that they were necessary to meet the plaintiffs’ current
medical needs.

Siggins, writing
for the Court of Appeal, agreed.

The plaintiffs,
he said, failed to proffer admissible evidence that they needed 1,500 pounds of
marijuana to meet their medical needs.

He agreed with
the trial judge that while Jason Browne, whose declaration the plaintiffs
offered, may be qualified to testify about medical marijuana generally, his
declaration did not establish “that he possesses the requisite expertise to
render a medical opinion as to the specific needs of the plaintiffs.”

Nor could their
doctor’s written recommendations establish the legality of possession, because
they were hearsay for that purpose, Siggins said.